Zee extortion case: Jindal group to meet inter-ministerial group

New Delhi: An inter-ministerial group of Information and Broadcasting ministry which met today to discuss allegations against news channel Zee would again meet next week to hear the complaint from officials of Jindal group. Sources told PTI that the group which met in the forenoon today discussed that the Jindal group had made a number of presentations against the Zee group to the I&B ministry.  Officials in the inter-ministerial group, which is headed by Additional Secretary in the I&B ministry J S Mathur, felt that before proceeding in the matter, the complainant should be heard first. The group, it is learnt, has decided that officials of the Jindal group would be called next week and will be given a personal hearing. Earlier, I&B minister Manish Tewari had told the Lok Sabha that the matter would be looked into by an inter-ministerial group. The battle between the Jindal group which is headed by Congress MP Naveen Jindal and Zee began after the former accused editors of the channel of attempting to extort money from the firm. Jindal has alleged that Zee News tried to extort Rs 100 crore in exchange for not airing stories linking him and his group to the coal blocks allocation scam and released a video-recording of meetings with executives of Zee TV and claimed it to be the proof. The allegations of the Jindal group had then led to the arrest of Zee News head Sudhir Chaudhary and Zee Business Editor Samir Ahluwalia. PTI